We’ve been covering the shift in American politics on Israel for years. Donald Trump’s disastrously failed war on Iran has accelerated it.
For years, conventional wisdom held that support for Israel was a third rail in U.S. politics. Phil Weiss has written a library of analysis and coverage on that here at Mondoweiss over the past 20 years. Uncritical support for Israel was toxic for politicians to touch, impossible to oppose, and self-reinforcing across both parties through the combined pressure of donor money, media consensus, and institutional loyalty. That consensus is broken forever. It didn’t break because of a sudden moral awakening in Washington. That will never happen, on virtually any issue. If you need any more proof of that, just look at the way the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein are being treated, or refer to the fact that even massacres of schoolchildren haven’t moved Congress to do something about guns in the country. The consensus across the political elite on Israel broke because Israel’s conduct in Gaza, Lebanon, and now in its open effort to torpedo an end to the war with Iran, has become a liability that American politicians can no longer ignore.
Michael Arria, our U.S. correspondent, documented this week how military aid to Israel has finally become a true litmus test in Democratic Party primaries. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced she will vote against all military aid to Israel, including weapons classified as “defensive,” a position she had previously hedged. Even J Street, the organization meant to offer a counter to AIPAC’s extremism but locked in perpetual confusion about its identity, is even now opposing U.S. support for the Iron Dome missile defense system. AIPAC, once considered the most powerful of all the many lobby groups, is now a liability in Democratic races, losing key primaries and watching candidates run against it by name. A recent NBC News poll shows just 13 percent of Democrats view Israel positively. These numbers are not marginal; they represent a fundamental and permanent realignment of the Democratic base. Politicians, candidates, and political institutions are paying attention.
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This fracturing is thankfully not limited to the left. The Iran war has cracked open the MAGA coalition in ways that the genocide in Gaza could not. Powerful conservative commentators commanding huge audiences and figures closely aligned with the MAGA movement have been openly and harshly critical of Trump over the war. The widespread, and correct, view is that Netanyahu manipulated Trump into a conflict that serves Israeli interests, not American ones. The critique of the tail wagging the dog is now being advanced loudly by people who would never have entertained it two years ago. The political ground is moving, dramatically, in the months before an all-important mid-term election. Republican figures with aspirations for more power, such as J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio, are beginning to distance themselves from the Iran debacle.
Mitchell Plitnick says the Iran war will only end when the U.S. decides to restrain Israel. The ceasefire is fragile, Trump’s own contradictory statements have directly undermined it, but the central obstacle to any durable resolution is Israel. Netanyahu declared the ceasefire did not include Lebanon and immediately launched what Lebanese officials described as a massacre, killing hundreds of people in something close to carpet bombing Beirut, just hours after the agreement was announced. Jonathan Ofir reports that the Israeli political spectrum has united not against the war but against the ceasefire, with Netanyahu’s domestic critics attacking him for agreeing to stop. Israel wants this war to continue. The question Plitnick poses, whether the U.S. will finally impose real limits on Israel, is the question we’re all waiting to have answered.
For those of us not terminally online, Walter Lucken looks at the controversy within the Democratic Party surrounding livestreamer and political commentator Hasan Piker. The debate about whether progressive politicians should associate with Piker is, as Lucken argues, a proxy war over Palestine’s place in American politics. The liberal establishment’s effort to push Piker out of the tent is a tacit concession that they have already lost the argument. Palestine is now central to left-populist politics in the United States, and the candidates who have embraced that fact, from Zohran Mamdani in New York City to Kat Abughazaleh in Illinois to Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, are either winning or coming damn close, building new coalitions of voters who have no confusion that Israel is a rogue state carrying out genocide and apartheid. The Israel lobby is not done fighting, but it is fighting from a position of retreat, which can also make it more dangerous.
None of this means the genocide in Gaza is ending, or that Palestinian lives are suddenly valued by American policymakers. The bombs, the starvation, the systematic destruction of Palestinian civil society all continue, with U.S. support. But the political conditions that have sustained that support for decades are visibly crumbling. The movement for Palestinian rights has been insisting for years that this shift was possible. It’s finally here.
Before you scroll to this week’s articles, two pieces deserve special attention. Jeff Wright’s report on the forced closure of Defense for Children International-Palestine, the only Palestinian children’s rights organization, is essential reading on Israel’s systematic campaign to dismantle Palestinian civil society. And Abdaljawad Omar’s essay tracing the neoconservative intellectual lineage behind Donald Trump’s threats against Iranian civilian infrastructure offers a critical historical understanding. Both are linked in the sections below.
🇺🇸 U.S. politics and the Israel lobby
Support for Israel is collapsing in Democratic polling. Military aid is a litmus test in primaries, and AIPAC is losing races it would have won easily two years ago.
READ MORE → Military aid to Israel emerges as the latest political litmus test for Democrats — Michael Arria
READ MORE → The Democratic Party debate over Hasan Piker is really a fight over Palestine’s new place in U.S. politics — Walter Lucken IV
🌍 The Iran war and Israel’s sabotage
A fragile ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran is already under assault from Israel, which launched a mass killing campaign in Lebanon hours after the agreement was announced and whose political establishment has united in opposition to any end to the fighting.
READ MORE → As U.S. and Iran agree to a temporary ceasefire, Israel launches ‘massacre’ in Lebanon, threatening entire deal — Qassam Muaddi
READ MORE → Israel is attacking Lebanon to sabotage the Iran ceasefire, but the media is hiding its true motivation — James North
READ MORE → The Iran war will end only when the U.S. finally decides to rein in Israel — Mitchell Plitnick
READ MORE → Israelis are finally revolting against Netanyahu — for agreeing to the U.S. ceasefire with Iran — Jonathan Ofir
🚨 Repression and resistance
The Trump administration’s use of immigration enforcement as a tool against Palestinian voices continues, while Palestine solidarity is scoring victories at the state and local level.
READ MORE → Supporters say Wisconsin mosque president was detained over Israel criticism — Michael Arria
READ MORE → Power & Pushback: ICE is still carrying out politically-motivated detentions against Palestinians — Michael Arria
READ MORE → BDS victories: Washington State divests from Caterpillar, capital city Olympia blocks investment in apartheid — Lois Pearlman
🇵🇸 Palestinian life and rights under siege
Israel’s campaign against Palestinian civil society continues with the closure of human rights organizations and the blocking of solidarity mail in its prisons.
READ MORE → The only Palestinian children’s rights organization closes following years-long Israeli campaign against it — Jeff Wright
READ MORE → Israeli prison authorities are blocking hundreds of solidarity postcards being sent to female Palestinian prisoners — Hind Shraydeh
READ MORE → How the neoconservative influence over U.S. war-making paved the way for Trump’s war crimes in Iran — Abdaljawad Omar
READ MORE → Palestine Letter: First love is for the homeland — Tareq S. Hajjaj
As an illustration of how Israel is losing its grip on American minds, today the New York Times ran a piece titled “Gaza’s Rubble Is the Grave of Our Future”. The interesting thing is the comments – here’s the first one:
“Israel succeeded: it wanted to destroy Palestinian society in Gaza, and it has; it wanted to level Gaza, and it has; it wanted to ensure no future for those able to survive its unending indiscriminate (except when targeting children, medics/hospitals and journalists) violence and starvation, and it has….It remains our “ally.” Of course. Why would it not. It is an “ally” that reflects the worst of us. And the worst of us are doing a pretty good job of ensuring it is their reflection that the world experiences and that we ourselves see in events in our country.”
Opinion | Gaza’s Rubble Is the Grave of Its Future – The New York Times
Another comment a little further down:
“I never thought this could have been perpetrated by civilized people. Now they have moved on to Lebanon. We need to demand accountability and stop this ruthlessness.”
Well it’s one thing to wage an illegal war of aggression against Iran. It’s quite another thing to announce that states that have sent tankers through the Straits of Hormuz with the consent of Iran and Oman, including France, India, China, Russia, Pakistan, Iraq, Bangladesh, and Turkey will be blockaded and their vessels attacked in the shipping channels or on the high seas. That is a declaration of war on several states that possess their own nuclear weapons. In the meantime, Trump is complaining that his attempts to smuggle arms to groups of Kurds to enlist them to start a civil war in Iran, that wouldn’t spread to Iraq, Turkey, and Syria is just as delusional.
For months now Netanyahu and Bennet have been portraying Turkey as the new existential threat to Israel, with fresh election campaign promises today to attack NATO member states. Of course Spain and Turkey have demanded that Netanyahu be arrested and brought to justice, either in their own courts or in the ICC.
“For years, conventional wisdom held that support for Israel was a third rail in U.S. politics. Phil Weiss has written a library of analysis and coverage on that here at Mondoweiss over the past 20 years. “
Before Phil Weiss began to evolve about what was taking place in that conflict, Edward Said in the late 60’s early 70’s, Vanessa Redgrave 70’s, Congressman Findley, Allison Weir, Finkelstein (in the 80’s) Art and Peggy Gish (early 80’s), Medea Benjaman (late 90’s early 2000, along with Phil Weiss began to speak about the facts on the ground. Mearsheimer and Walt began to write about the power of the I lobby in that timeline.
The slow opening of the facts on the ground about the Palestine, Israel conflict here in U.S. has picked up last 25 years.
Must listen. Judge Napolatino new outlet blowing holes in the silence dike that the Israel lobby built for decades
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kK_GW-3hnA
“... whether the U.S. will finally impose real limits on Israel, is the question we’re all waiting to have answered….The movement for Palestinian rights has been insisting for years that this shift was possible. It’s finally here.”
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Real limits on warriors for greater Israel will follow Palestinian led campaigns for equal rights.